Loyalist Decommissioning In Focus

Time is running out for loyalist paramilitaries.

Although NI Secretary of State Sean Woodward won limited backing from fellow MPs to extend the work of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) in January last - hoping that loyalists would begin to "put its weapons beyond use in 2005 - his patience is now wearing thin.

"It remains very important that those figures within loyalism who have done so much to transform their communities don't lose sight of the priorities here.

"Decommissioning matters. It matters that it happens in the time scale we discussed."

He said removing weapons was part of the wider efforts to secure a normal society and that, in August, loyalism would be at the end of the (compromise) six month period.

"The IICD must make a report to me telling whether there has been meaningful development and progress," he said, noting there was no room for manoeuvre or compromise.

Meanwhile, the Commission's latest full report has also said that both the UDA and UVF needed to "do more to address the issue of decommissioning".

The organisation has however highlighted the fact that dissident republicans "remain highly dangerous".

Although the report covers the period from September to February, the watchdog commented on the political impact of the murders of two soldiers and a policeman: "The current ongoing violence is an attempt to destroy the peace process and return the community to the period of the violent struggle from which it has so painfully and relatively recently emerged.

"Dissident republicans are attempting to deflect the PSNI from maintaining community policing and so disrupt the increasing community acceptance of normal policing.

"In our view, however, this is a challenge and a testing of the peace process by the people who have always been violently opposed to it. It does not represent an unravelling of the peace process."

The watchdog found that in the months prior to the murders, the Continuity and Real IRA were both increasing their level of activity, resulting in a more concentrated period of attacks than at any time since the IMC published its first report five years ago.

See: Loyalist Guns In Focus As Peace Broker Remembered